Monitor Your Time Spent on Social Media With New Tools From Facebook and Instagram

Most of us know we spend too much time on our phones. It’s led to a host of studies on the negative effects, and there are definitely repercussions to constantly peeking at my notifications and following those digital squirrels at every chance I get. We’ve offered some solutions before, from using your battery info to see where you spend your time to apps like Forest on iOS that gently encourage you to put your phone down for a while. Facebook is now recognizing the issue, as well, and offering a universal option for all Facebook and Instagram users. On Facebook, you’ll go to your settings page and choose “Your Time on Facebook.” On Instagram, you’ll tap Settings->Your Activity. The tools in both apps are essentially the same. First, you’ll see an activity dashboard showing your average time for that app on the current device, with access to a view of your total time for that day. Based on that information, you can make use of the other tools. You can set a daily reminder for a custom interval that pops up an alert when you’ve spent your chosen limit in the app for that day. It won’t lock you out or anything, just a gentle reminder that you can change or cancel at any time. You can also tap on “Notification Settings” and use “Mute Push Notifications,” a new setting that quiets your Facebook or Instagram notifications for a selected period of time between 15 minutes and 8 hours. This… [Read full story]